Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Documento (9) 5
Documento (9) 5
While it might not be as tangible as auto theft or burglary, plagiarism is still a form of theft.Stick
figure drawing of a politician speaking at pulpit, with someone in the audience holding up a sign
saying "citation needed"
You might not be aware that plagiarism can take several different forms. The most well known,
intentional or purposeful plagiarism, is handing in an essay written by someone else and
representing it as your own, copying your essay word for word from a magazine or journal, or
downloading an essay from the Internet.
A much more common and less understood phenomenon is unintentional or accidental plagiarism.
Accidental plagiarism is the result of improperly paraphrasing, summarizing, quoting, or citing your
evidence in your academic writing. Generally, writers accidentally plagiarize because they simply
don’t know or they fail to follow the rules for giving credit to the ideas of others in their writing.
Both intentional and unintentional plagiarism are wrong, against the rules, and can result in harsh
punishments. Ignoring or not knowing the rules of how to not plagiarize and properly cite
evidence might be an explanation, but it is not an excuse.